057: Kevin Mullins – How To Make Your Website Work for Your Photography Business

You may have the ambition and drive to produce amazing photos for your couples but unless you can provide those photos at a realistic cost to you in terms of time, you will never have a profitable business. In this interview, Kevin Mullins, a “real” documentary wedding photographer explains how to make your website work for your photography business and drive your hourly rate up.

When you visit Kevin's website there are a number of things that stand out, some obviously so, some catch you more unawares and it's not until you've been there for a while that you begin to understand how effective his website is.

One of those things is the long list of Kevin's photography awards that he proudly and rightly so, shows off on his website. A website that we know is converting well. Learn how the awards affect bookings and how he leverages them to improve his business and website rankings.

Here's some more of what we cover:

SEO – how to rank back then and how to rank now from the view of an internet marketing professional turned wedding photographer

How to create multiple pieces of content from every shoot you do

Strategically marketing to photographers to help SEO and how you can do the same

Having a point of difference and pushing it to the extreme to get noticed and booked

Why you shouldn't be meeting with clients if it doesn't affect bookings and only decreases your hourly rate (profit)

Why you need to have enough information on your website to answer ALL your clients questions and how it can affect your bottom line

Shooting wedding full-time with the Fuji mirror-less systems and why smaller is better for some styles of wedding photography

Looking for and using long tail keyword phrases based on what your clients are looking for, not what other photographers would be searching for

Establishing a base hourly rate and doing everything you can to meet and exceed that figure

Why an hourly rate is the perfect guide to having a great lifestyle as a photographer

Lessons learnt as an internet marketer that you can use as a photographer to rise above your competition in the organic search rankings

From start to fully booked and busy in less than two years

A unique pricing strategy that increases during the year as bookings increase – i.e., early bookings pay less than a later booking in the same year

How exactly did Kevin go from zero to 10 weddings in the first 5 months of launching his wedding photography business?

Why you need to have a call to action on every page and every post on your website if you want to see more enquiries

Tribal marketing and how you can use it to help your website rise through the search engines organically

Why you need to view and write for Google like a real life client or face the prospect of being penalised

As photographers, we all have a huge archive of content that can be used to create content – no matter how new you are to the business. Kevin shows you how to do it

The longer you can keep someone on your website, the more you'll impress Google and the higher your ranking. Kevin shares his secrets on how you can keep visitors on your site longer

Following the interview, you'll be clear about the one massive mistake that photographers are making on their website in terms of SEO and blog posts that you probably weren't aware of before listening. As a marketing and stats man, it was blindingly obvious to Kevin and lucky for us, he did explain the mistake and how to fix it – the question is, will you be making the suggested change?

If you're on Twitter and like to support the show and easily let Kevin know you've been listening, click here to populate a tweet: photobizx.com/Kev

What's on Offer for Premium Members

In this episode, I announce a big shake up for the premium members and how you will get more premium content than ever before. Going forward, members will receive the full interview via email with the option to download or listen from the membership area of the website.

Non premium listeners will only be hearing roughly half the interviews from today. I will, however, continue to do my absolute best to get the most valuable content possible in the first half of each interview and I won't be holding back.

Needless to say, I'll be going just as hard in the 2nd half of the interviews for premium members.

Why the big change? After more than 12 months and 56 episodes, there is no mistake about what you get with the Photo Biz Xposed podcast interviews. From the very start, my intention was to provide a seminar/business workshop with the best guests possible to help improve your photography business. I wanted this show to make a difference to your bookings, profitability, your confidence and your lifestyle. I wanted to produce a show that encourages you to take action and that makes a difference.

I never wanted to produce a show for entertainment value.

With the runs on the board and emails every week letting me know the difference the podcast is making, I know I'm on the right track. I feel now is the time to keep the listeners that really are serious about taking action in their business, the listeners that want to improve.

If that's you, get on board and join all the other premium members and don't miss out on information, advice and tips that will take your business to the next level.

If you're simply looking for a time filler, some photography entertainment, the weekly podcast will still be available for you but just not in as much depth.

I hope to see you as a premium member if you're not already there.

What is your big takeaway?

Following this interview with Kevin, I'd love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you'd like to implement or learnt from what he had to share? Let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.

If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you'd like to ask or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them below.

If you'd like an easy way to show the guys your thanks, and support for the show at the same time, click the link to create a tweet and automatically and let them know you're listening: https://photobizx.com/kev.

The Resources Page

Remember the ever expanding resources page that has a listing of products, programs, hardware, books and directories mentioned in each episode of the show. If you’re looking for something that a guest has mentioned on a previous episode but just can’t remember who or what it was – you’ll find it listed in order on the resources page.

Sincerely, thanks so much for your rating and review, I appreciate the time you've taken and it's a big help for the show. It's these iTunes reviews that make a big difference to the podcast being ranked well and found in the iTunes store. If you have the time and are happy to leave an honest rating and review, head over to iTunes.

Don't feel your comments have to be long, involved or gushy, an honest opinion is all I ask. Don't be shy about leaving your business name in the review either – that way I can add a link in the show-notes and show my appreciation with a proper thanks and a Google loving back-link to your website.

That's it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!

If you've been enjoying the podcast, I'd love for you to tell another photographer about it – it could be in a Facebook Group you're a part of, a photography forum, with a photographer friend or on twitter.